Boxer Codex: Pigments, Fire, Survival

Locked in a vault 14,000 kilometers from Manila lies a 16th-century manuscript that survived a Nazi bomb: the Boxer Codex. Created in 1590 through an unlikely collaboration between Spanish colonizers, Chinese artists, and Filipino informants, its vibrant illustrations offer the most detailed visual record of our ancestors—from tattooed Visayan warriors to gold-draped Tagalog nobles—before colonialism transformed their world. Join us as we trace the codex's incredible journey across three continents and explore how this accidental colonial record has become a powerful, and controversial, tool for reclaiming Filipino identity today.